Hey General, It's Me, Chuck. Again.

Since the July 3 military coup in Egypt, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has spoken to General Abdel Fattah al-Sissi—the country’s charismatic strongman—more than 25 times. The two men reportedly first bonded somewhat over a two-hour lunch in April. Apparently, Sissi liked Hagel’s “bluntness.” Their relationship, forged during one of the worst spells of violence in Egypt’s modern history, provides an interesting, if unsettling, window into the strategic drift of U.S. policy in Egypt as well as the broader region.

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Since that first lunch, Hagel and Sissi have spoken often. Out of the 30 or so total calls, the U.S. government has provided 15 official readouts over six months, each with a similar set of messages to Sissi: Try to be less repressive and more inclusive. Egypt is the only country where Hagel has a regular, direct line of communication not just with the minister of defense but also the (effective) head of state, since Sissi happens to be both. With each passing month, the readouts become more surreal, with Hagel asking what has become one of the region’s more brutal, repressive regimes to be “democratic.” Although there are certainly competitors—Syria and Israel-Palestine come to mind—it is difficult to think of another case where U.S. policy is so completely divorced from realities on the ground.

There is little to suggest that Hagel’s exhortations have had even a minimal effect on Sissi and the Egyptian government’s conduct. Since the coup, there have been four mass killings, including the worst massacre in decades; some 10,000 people have been arrested or detained; and opposition protests have been banned. The crackdown has extended to secular activists as well, with three leading revolutionaries sentenced to three years in prison. What, then, is the point of all these conversations? Security cooperation is important, but does it require nearly 30 calls, including 10 in the span of one week just after the coup? What, exactly, is going on?

One theory is that the secretary is soft-pedaling his talking points. Hagel hails from the “realist” school, which tends to de-emphasize the internal politics of allied states: To realists, all other things being equal, it would be better if Egypt was a democracy, but it’s not essential.More important, to Hagel and many other realists, is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its impact on the broader region, in what journalist Jeffrey Goldberg calls the “linkage” theory.

But Hagel ultimately works for his boss, President Barack Obama. Contrary to what many in the Muslim Brotherhood and their allies may think, the Obama administration did not support the coup, at least not while it was happening. As Adam Entous of the Wall Street Journal reported, Hagel warned Sissi of the dangers of a coup on July 1. But the confusion mounted when Secretary of State John Kerry, just weeks later, appeared to rubber-stamp the military takeover, saying that the generals were “restoring democracy” to Egypt. Why exactly should Sissi listen to Hagel, especially when Kerry was winking?

Hagel’s own message was a mixed one. While stressing “inclusiveness” to Sissi, he himself opposed a suspension of military assistance—of which the United States provides Egypt some $1.3 billiona year—suggesting there was little backing up the rhetoric. Sure enough, in October, the Obama administration moved ahead with a partial aid “cut,” which, while largely symbolic, might have at least paved the way for a more robust response. In the policy rollout, however, senior officials went out of their way to belittle the importance and impact of the aid suspension, emphasizing that business would continue as usual. During a visit to Egypt on Nov. 3, Kerry reiterated that message in more direct fashion, saying that the “aid issue is a very small issue.” Yet, right in the thick of the crackdown, while the government was preparing the ban on opposition protests, Kerry went even further. “The roadmap [is moving] in the direction that everybody has been hoping for,” he said. The following day, the deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, and other senior Brotherhood figures saw their day in court on trumped-up charges.

Understood in this context, Hagel’s seemingly sincere encouragement of Sissi’s better angels—he sent him Ron Chernow’s 904-page biography of George Washington—appears to have been an exercise in futility. As Hagel explained it: “Well, the specific chapter that I focused on with General Sissi, with whom I have had conversations with many times: Are you going to be the George Washington or are you going to be the Mubarak of Egypt?”

Sissi, however, is nothing like either man. Mubarak was your run-of-the-mill autocrat, intent on restricting dissent, but also willing to tolerate a degree of opposition. He had no particular ideology except the preservation of power and, in his latter years, the accumulation of wealth. Sissi evinces no such modesty, hearkening back to the caudillos of Latin America with his populist paternalism. He is a compelling orator, comfortable speaking extemporaneously and with seeming conviction. Just weeks after his rise to power, Sissi, on state television, called for mass rallies to “authorize” him to do what was necessary in the fight against “terrorists.” A personality cult has grown accordingly, with Sissi-themed cupcakes and chocolates and even women’s nightwear featuring the general himself in dark sunglasses.

It is somewhat ironic that Sissi is the first Egyptian head of state, de facto or otherwise, to have lived in the United States, training at Georgia’s Fort Benning in 1981 and then spending, in 2006, an academic year at the War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. His English is good enough to speak to Hagel without an interpreter.Here, many U.S. officials must have thought, is a man we could do business with. Perhaps Sissi would demonstrate the value of international exchange programs? Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo suggested as much: “I’ll bet this total immersion in the West that he had for the better part of a year… is contributing to the fact that communications lines are open.”

Which makes it all the more interesting that the Sissi regime has taken Egypt’s already considerable anti-Americanism and amplified it, with state media running wild with conspiracies about U.S. officials hatching conspiracies with the Muslim Brotherhood to “divide” Egypt (Obama himself is regularly accused, in a weird feedback loop from Tea Party conspiracy theories, of being a Muslim Brotherhood member). While the government has aggressively clamped down on the most mild, even imagined, dissent—take, for instance, the investigation into a muppet accused of sending coded messages to terrorists—state-owned newspapers have not been above headlines calling the United States the “American Satan.”

Previously coy about his intentions, General Sissi appears to have made a decision. He has been driven by both personal ambition (a voice reportedly told him in a dream: “We will grant you what no one has had before”)and mounting public pressure. One pro-Sissi group filed a lawsuit in an attempt to “force” Sissi to run. Another pro-Sissi group, claiming 12 million signatures in support, would prefer to skip the formality of elections altogether.

What will Hagel say if Sissi finally succumbs to the pressure and the personality cult and formally announces his candidacy, as now seems all but inevitable? But, more importantly, will it matter?